Ending with Intention: Once a Geek Whisperer with Amy Lewis (2/2)

How do you know when to stop doing something you love? Amy Lewis would say decisions like these require us to be intentional about putting something down so we can pick up something else.

Amy is an unapologetic marketer working in the tech industry, and she was once a Geek Whisperer. This week in episode 302 we explore the genesis of Amy’s involvement in The Geek Whisperers podcast. You’ll hear how it all began, how it changed over time, the overarching purpose, and why the show eventually ended. Amy speaks to the need for intention in our decision making, shares advice for those in our industry impacted by layoffs, and we learn how Amy progressed into people management. For the prospective or current people leaders out there, listen closely for some great tips.

Original Recording Date: 09-19-2024

Amy Lewis is the director of enterprise marketing at GitHub. If you missed part 1 of our discussion about Amy, check out Episode 301.

Topics – Whispering with Intention, Advice for Those Impacted by a Layoff, Pursuing People Leadership, Parting Thoughts with a Geek Whisperers Twist

2:31 – Whispering with Intention

• As big fans of The Geek Whisperers podcast, Nick and John ask Amy how it all began. Nick remembers finding this podcast in 2016 / 2017 and how he couldn’t stop listening.
  • The hosts of The Geek Whisperers were Amy Lewis, John Mark Troyer, and Matt Broberg.
  • Amy likes to make her own luck and will jump in when she sees certain circumstances. In the case of The Geek Whisperers, Amy feels there was a lot of good fortune.
  • John, Matt, and Amy knew of each other and were running similar programs at different companies.
  • Amy thinks John and Matt had been talking about a podcast idea and knew each other a little better. Amy remembers first meeting Matt at a VMworld conference.
  • The original purpose of Amy, Matt, and John getting together was to talk shop. John had a great editorial vision for what could be a podcast.
  • “Everything just kind of disappeared into a group effort. It was magical…. It was just this amazing synergy. And when we first started we really did talk shop. It was a lot of influence marketing. It was about programs we were running. It was a time where influence marketing in a B2B setting was unheard of…. And then there was a moment where we realized so many people were hungry for hearing stories of career, and we decided to pivot. It’s a passion for all of us, and we started to tell the stories that people kind of couldn’t get another way, ask questions that other people might not be able to ask, share stories that we’d overheard or connections that we’d had…. We did what we hoped to do – create a body of work that we hoped would serve a community we really loved and were proud to be part of.” – Amy Lewis
  • Nick remembers Amy’s mention of listening back to past episodes of The Geek Whisperers to help herself fall asleep.
• How do you decide to lay something down that you really enjoy and is very successful (i.e. The Geek Whisperers)?
  • Amy says they found a natural stopping point in terms of number of episodes and in what year.
  • My re-iterates how difficult it can be to produce weekly content. She remembers heavy travel and doing food blogging while still being part of the podcast.
  • Amy would help on the editorial side of the show, while Matt and John would often do editing and write show notes. Looking back she wonders how the 3 of them kept it going when they were all so busy.
  • “We didn’t want to fade away. We wanted to end strong, and we wanted to do it with intention…. That was a shared agreement with the 3 of us. So we stayed in while we were in, and we all agreed when we were out. And it just kind of speaks I think to the synergy of the group…. We didn’t know what was going to happen day to day. We just really enjoyed talking to each other, and it made sense to record it. Then suddenly it became a thing. And there is some pressure. It was hard. We had hard days and we had days where we were tired and really had to gut it out. And we really kind of found our groove. I don’t know. It just had a natural lifecycle. It would be hard even with retrospect to know. So no, we didn’t know where we were going to end when we started, but we knew when it was time. And I think all of us feel really good about that.” – Amy Lewis, on being part of The Geek Whisperers
    • Amy says they did not know where it would end when they got started, but it is amazing to think about how many people the podcast mattered to.
  • John mentions this idea of retiring somet